Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe.

The country’s Covid-19 death toll rose to 664 on Wednesday after five more died over a period of 24 hours.

Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe while addressing the media at Kenyatta University Teaching, Referral and Research Hospital noted the number of coronavirus cases reported in the country since March had risen to 37,348 after 130 cases were recorded out of 3,874 samples were tested. 

So far the Ministry has analysed 523,998 samples since the onset of the pandemic.

Seven of the new patients are foreigners while the rest are Kenyans.

Of the new cases, 89 males and 41 females.

Nairobi accounted for the highest number of cases at 35 followed by Kiambu and Kisumu which registered 23 and 19 cases respectively over the same period.

Other counties registered: Mombasa (14), Uasin Gishu (8), Kerich (6), Kisii (5), Busia (5), Kilifi (5), Bomet (2), Narok (2), Siaya, Trans Nzoia, Turkana, Kajiado and Machakos had one case each.

Fortunately, 106 patients had recovered from the disease. 81 of those had been discharged from various health facilities and twenty-five were under the home-based care programme.

Kagwe revealed the country’s coronavirus curve was now flattening. The positivity rate stands at 3.4 per cent.

 “We have been on a positivity rate of below five per cent for the last few days,” he said, adding we should, however, be caution of the second wave that is always a possibility.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) initially suggested a positivity rate of around 3–12 per cent as a general benchmark of adequate testing, and has most recently recommended that test positivity should remain at 5 per cent or lower for 14 days before regions reopen.

Cancer

In today’s address, Kagwe also highlighted that cancer disease was a top killer after infectious and cardiovascular diseases.

Annually, 70 per cent of reported cancer patients end up dying from the disease due to the high costs of treatments, among other factors.

“On an annual basis, we register an approximate 50,000 new cases of Cancer… We end up losing about 35,000 patients,” he said, adding that a vast majority perish because their cancers are diagnosed at an advanced stage, “too late for curative treatment.”